"There is no escape--we pay for the violence of our ancestors. "-from "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

Lady Jessica is awakened at 2:00 in the morning by shouting coming from the great hall. She runs to the hall to find a couple of house guards holding up a drunken Duncan Idaho as Mapes looks on. They brought him in from outside where he was making a scene. Jessica sends Mapes for coffee. Yueh shows up and offers to take care of him. Duncan refuses the coffee and Jessica slaps him in the face, Idaho responds by accusing her of being a Harkonnen spy. Everything then falls into place for Jessica and she must use here Bene Gesserit tricks to remain calm. She throws the coffee in Idaho's faces and tells them to lock him in a spare room and let him sleep it off. She orders Hawat brought to her then returns to her rooms and slams the door. There she prepares herself for Hawat. He enters and she begins to question him and determines right away that he is not a spy. Jessica contemplates telling him that she's pregnant with the Duke's daughter but decides against it. They talk about who the traitor could be and why the men are getting drunk on spice beer. Jessica asks why he doesn't make use of her Bene Gesserit abilities, Hawat says he knows something of them, he can see her training in Paul. He says he doesn't trust her Bene Gesserit motives. She boasts that if she'd wanted the Duke dead he couldn't stop her. She shocks him by suggesting that the Harkonnens are attempting to sow distrust in him, to which he jumps out of his chair. Jessica uses Voice on him to keep him seated, and Hawat is astonished at her level of control over him, she could have killed him. The implications of the power of Voice staggers him. She orders him to repeat nothing of this and to get to the bottom of the baseles suspicion of her. Jessica dismisses him, he thinks of the Old Duke. Now he is the mattador and Lady Jessica the bull. He knew no matter what, he would neverforget this moment or lose admiration for Lady Jessica. Jessica thinks that now she will see some action.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

I have just arrived at this chapter in my third reading of Dune, and a particular in the scene where Thufir and Jessica are talking left me a little puzzled. At a certain point, Jessica wonders whether there is no traitor among them, and she thinks the Harkonnens will try to smuggle some lasguns, in order to blast the palace shield. Hawat immediately discards this hypothesis, since no one could tell the difference between this type of explosion and those generated by atomics, because radiations remain in the environment (so the other Great Houses would surely retaliate against the Harkonnens).

I've always imagined that shield-lasgun interactions produced "clean" explosions, without radioactive fallout, and if I'm not mistaken, there is also a passage in Chapterhouse:Dune that clearly states this fact (unfortunately I don't have right now my Ch:D copy to check it). Since between the publication of Dune and that of Chapterhouse:Dune about 20 years have passed, it could well be that Herbert change his mind, or he simply forgot this passage, but anyway I'd like to know your opinion on this matter.

Rymoah

(PS: sorry I didn't quote the passage, but I'm reading Dune in Italian and I don't have access right now to an English edition )

Atoms are pressed together, creating a heavier atom and releasing energy (radiation). Is that not correct?

Fallout is dust and ash expelled and radiated by the initial explosion which falls back to earth.

BTW, if you need to reference a chapter in a latter book or a latter chapter in the same book, I'd prefer you reference the earlier chapter from the latter as to not spoil things for first time readers.

Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.~Pink Snowman

"There is no traitor," she said. "The threat's something else. Perhaps ithas to do with the lasguns. Perhaps they'll risk secreting a few lasguns withtiming mechanisms aimed at house shields. Perhaps they'll . . . ""And who could tell after the blast if the explosion wasn't atomic?" heasked. "No, my Lady. They'll not risk anything that illegal. Radiation lingers.The evidence is hard to erase. No. They'll observe most of the forms. It has tobe a traitor."

Freakzilla wrote:How do you have atomic fusion without radiation?

Atoms are pressed together, creating a heavier atom and releasing energy (radiation). Is that not correct?

What I meant was ionising radiation (gamma rays, etc.), which could well be detected by a geiger counter. If I am not mistaken, nuclear fusion releases a huge amount of energy in form of thermal radiation, plus a little fraction of neutron radiation. The fact that Thufir referred to "Radiation that lingers" made me think to some kind of fission reaction involved which releases a great quantity of gamma rays as a by-product.

Freakzilla wrote:Fallout is dust and ash expelled and radiated by the initial explosion which falls back to earth.

My bad, maybe I used the wrong term here.

Freakzilla wrote:BTW, if you need to reference a chapter in a latter book or a latter chapter in the same book, I'd prefer you reference the earlier chapter from the latter as to not spoil things for first time readers.

Sorry, I'll try to keep that in mind in the future. I'll open a specific thread in the Dune General Discussion Forum later, if this is the case (e.g. if I don't find another thread that treat this argument, but searching in the forums yesterday didn't return me anything relevant).